Blogie Blog

I’ve finally gotten myself a digicam — a Canon PowerShot SX100 IS — from a friend who was willing to give it up for an extremely friendly price. So, here are some pictures I took of the bloggers party @ Toto’s Bar last Saturday.

For the life of me, I neglected to take more photos of the food! Anyway, here’s what I had to say about the buffet spread, prepared by the good people of Casa Leticia.

A few more photos at Rod’s new blog and at Migs’.

It was a very productive — albeit momentarily heated — meeting we had last night, a group of bloggers and an NGO representative together in a workshop at Fwendz Diner. (Btw, try their chimichanga!) It was for the MBS1 Pre-Summit Workshop, where we tackled this concern: the role of bloggers in fostering understanding & peace in Mindanao.

On a lighter side, it was also where Mandaya Moore-Orlis revealed herself to the workshop participants and a number of The Usual Suspects. Would you like to know who he/she is? Attend the Summit and you just might find out! Read on»

In my position in life, I’ve gotten to rub elbows with a few industry bigwigs and even some celebrities, but I don’t really get gushy or tense around them. So last night was mildly surprising when I found myself rather schoolgirlishly nervous as I waited for my Skype chat with Matt Mullenweg. I’m embarrassed to say I got tongue-tied for a little while when we were talking. But I suppose it’s understandable — Matt’s only the founder of the most awesome blogging platform on the globe. Ok stop! now I’m gushing…

The Usual Suspects (the bad boys behind the bloggers’ bash) had wanted to invite Matt to Davao City for the October Summit, but unfortunately he’s already scheduled to be somewhere else during our event (not at liberty to say where, sorry). Shucks. It would’ve been quite a coup! Read on»

Yesterday I met up with my two closest Japanese friends, Ichi and Shin. Ichi had gone back to Japan for a month-long vacation and yesterday was my first time to see him back. And Shin, he’d been gone for years, having already transferred to Bulgaria after living in Davao for more than 3 years. Sadly, he’ll be gone again before the month is out.

Ever since I started having up-close-and-personal contacts with the Japanese, Ichi and Shin have guided me along the intricate and occasionally confusing pathways of Japanese interpersonal relations. Be it in friendships, business affiliations, temporary liaisons — the Japanese have patterns of accepted behavior, probably codified in their genes. For a non-Japanese, it can be a struggle comprehending those complex and unwritten rules of conduct. Read on»

It’s 2:30 in the morning, and I’ve just come from the Namfrel Davao computer center, which I’ve been managing for three days now. So far we’ve been able to encode and transmit election returns from over 250 poll precincts — not a bad feat, considering we only have less than 10 volunteers at any given time. Most of the volunteers are assigned in the field and in headquarters. Davao has more than 3,000 precincts, by the way.

I’m proud of the computer encoders I’ve been working with. There’s Rowena, who always volunteers with Namfrel, each time we hold elections. There were four students from AMA Computer College last Tuesday; and accountants from PICPA chipped in their time and energy as well. Wednesday early evening till the wee hours I had nine students from John Paul II College. This last batch was very impressive — they finished in one sitting more than half of the total output so far! Credit goes to Lawrence, the center’s appointed systems administrator, who rounded up these guys for us. Read on»

I recently gave someone (unsolicited) advice to go bloghopping before forming opinions about something or other. So, before that advice rebounds to me, I thought I’d do some of my own. It’s amazing how much about a person you can deduce just by rummaging through his personal stuff, right? Well, the same goes for a person’s blogs, I think. That is, if he or she has several blogs.

Read on»

I’m tutoring a 9-year old Japanese boy, teaching him Math and English. (The latter is no problem for me at all, but the former? this is the very first time that anyone’s asked me to teach Math! Anyway, it’s just Grade 2 arithmetic.) It was our first session last Saturday, and we went through the usual getting-to-know-each-other phase. I’ve known his father for several months now, but this was the first time that the kid’s seen me. He asked me quite candidly what made me decide to take up teaching, and some more questions that were very frank and open. The kind of questions that made me pause and try to give him as frank an answer as I could. Read on»

Tonight I had a gastronomic experience that made me say, ‘I could die now!’ But I’m not gonna die just yet… so it means I’m in trouble. From now on, I don’t think I could ever have sashimi again… unless it’s Class A tuna.

See, tonight, at a Japanese friend’s home, I was served Class A yellow-fin tuna (kihada maguro) — this is what is exported to Japan and sold for loads of moolah per kilo. It’s the kind of sashimi-grade tuna that’s sweet and oh-so-fresh it feels like angels caressing your palate. Read on»